In today’s day and age, it is hard to imagine a world where the answers to our most pressing questions aren’t just a click away. Nicholas Carr’s article, “Is Google Making us Stupid”, criticizes our dependence on the internet and reflects on its effects on our brains throughout the years we have had it available.
Carr’s main argument is that due to our constant use of the internet, mainly sites like Google, our brains are being rewired in a way that’s making it more difficult for us to commit to deeper reading. He explained how after his own continued use of the internet he was no longer able to read long articles without getting distracted possibly because “[his] mind now expects him to take in information the way the net distributes it”. (pg.737) Throughout the article he includes many anecdotes relating to humans and technology throughout the years meant to highlight its impact on us, such as how under the sway of the machine,in this case a typewriter, Friedrich Nietzsche’s prose “changed from arguments to aphorisms, from thoughts to puns, from rhetoric to telegram style.”(pg.740)
I agree with Carr’s argument that the internet has made it harder for us to read for longer periods of time due to all the information we process due to the internet. It has made us accustomed to skimming rather than actually taking the time to process what we’re reading. Although there is no disputing that fact, can it really be claimed the internet is dumbing us down or is Carr just opposed to the evolution of the human race through technology? Our changed thought process doesn’t automatically equate to new found stupidity. If that was the case, our society wouldn’t be as advanced as it is today. The internet has been around for many years and we haven’t managed to regress to an uncivilized state. We have progressed in many ways due to technology not in spite of it.
It’s one thing to say our increased internet use has rewired our brains and our thought process but to say it has made us “stupid” is a bit of a stretch. Carr is 60 so he grew up in an age without smartphones and readily available internet so he was used to doing things a certain way before he was introduced to the internet and all it had to offer. To someone in his position they could mistake the change in their cognitive process for increasing stupidity, but I see it as our brains evolving to be able to handle the mass amounts of information we are exposed to on a daily basis.
If we took the time to analyze everything we read every day, we wouldn’t be able to get much done. That’s why we are able to skim through many things and decide what is of importance to us and what isn’t. Our brains have evolved and adapted to the modern world of increased internet usage. Although it may seem harder to process and retain the copious amounts of material we come across every day, it is a blessing in disguise because most of it.
